Life cycle assessment of biofuels in India

Abstract

Climate change caused by the extensive use of fossil fuels is currently one of the most challenging issues for scientific communities and nations across the world. The population of many countries is growing rapidly and it is expected the world population to reach approximately 8.5 billion by the year 2030. At the same time, there is a spike in the economic development, especially in developing countries like China and India and these countries have entered their most energy intensive phase of economic growth. With increase in population, the demand for energy, food and natural resources will increase substantially over the next decade. Thus, an important issue faced today is to meet the increasing energy demand and have sustainable energy resources for the future use while protecting the environment. Bioenergy can play a major role in the industrial countries consuming huge amount of fossil energy and are also responsible for increasing CO2 level. The rising world energy demand, uneven distribution of fossil resources and their continuous depletion along with adverse impact on the environment, urge many countries to formulate policies to promote sustainable energy source. The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, United States (US) defined a number of mandates with respect to renewable fuels. One of these mandates called for the production of 16 billion gallons of cellulosic fuel by the year 2022. In the US, one of the policies to promote biofuels is described by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that dictates to increase the current biofuel usage from 7.1 to 15% in transportation fleets. Similarly, European Commission (EC) in 2007 mandated that out of total energy use, 20% needs to be achieved from renewable sources and out of that, 10% to be used in transportation by 2020 [20]. Government of India in 2009 mandated 5% ethanol blending in gasoline and has an ambitious plan to reach up to 20% blending by 2017. The current ethanol production is India is based on sugarcane molasses and in order to meet the set target extensive research and development efforts are undergoing to commercialize the cellulosic ethanol technology.